Digital cameras are used to create electronic image files that can be downloaded to computers and, if desired, shared with others by emailing or posting on a web site. When image files are downloaded from the camera to a computer, such as a personal computer (PC), the computer normally assigns default names to the files as they are stored to memory such as “001.jpg,” “002.jpg,” and so forth.
Given the nondescript nature of the names generated by the computer as image files are downloaded and stored, it can be difficult for the user to later locate a desired image or group of images in that the only information provided in their file names may be a number and, potentially, the date on which the images were downloaded to the computer. Accordingly, other methods must be used to locate the desired image(s), such as manually reviewing each image in thumbnail form. Such a process is highly inefficient.
Some software packages now permit users to designate a prefix that will be applied to all images downloaded to the computer at a given time. For example, after a connection is made between the camera and the computer, the computer may present preview images (e.g., thumbnails) of the various images available for download and may further prompt the user to enter a name to assign to the various images the user selects. When the user enters a name, that name is assigned to each image. Therefore, if the user entered the name “John's Birthday,” the downloaded images may have names such as “John's Birthday—001.jpg,” “John's Birthday—002.jpg,” etc.
Although enabling the user to assign a more descriptive name to the user's stored images, the above-described method has attendant disadvantages. For one, the entered name will be assigned to each downloaded image regardless of whether the name is relevant to each downloaded image. Therefore, if there are 20 image files to download, but only 18 pertain to John's birthday, all of the 20 downloaded image files will include the “John's Birthday” designation. This is unfortunate in that, if the user later wishes to find the two images that did not pertain to John's birthday, that user may actually be misled by those two images' names and therefore may have difficulty in locating the images.
Notably, the misnaming described above can be avoided by carefully choosing which images to download from those available for download from the camera. For instance, if a first group of images pertain to a Christmas celebration and another group of images pertain to a New Year's celebration, the name “Christmas” can be associated with the images of the first group and the name “New Year's” can be associated with the images of the second group by first downloading the images of the first group, and then separately downloading the images of the second group. Unfortunately, however, this process is tedious for the user and, in some cases, may require the user to open, close, and reopen the image downloading program that executes on the computer.
In another solution, the user can simply download all images and later re-organize the images under relevant folders and, if desired, rename each image with a name that pertains to the folder name. Clearly, however, this method is manually-intensive and inefficient.